By the commercials? IMHO, they don’t have the feel of “child genius” (think of Little Man Tate) but of mocking an autistic child. TBBT is almost all “laughing at, not with”, and it looks much more harsh when aimed at a child.
I predict this show will be gone in the first wave of cancellations, never making it to Episode #10.
I found this clip on YouTube, for those who haven’t seen the ads. (There are two ads, but this covers both of them, it seems.)
I didn’t find it too disturbing, just cringy. The child actor can’t seem to act very well, and what humor is even there seems mostly “look at how bad Sheldon is!” The original show to me actually had some humor, even if a lot of it is poking fun at nerdom. But I found even watching the ads hard to sit through (even the shorter versions).
And did I mention that the kid can’t act? There is nothing behind those line reads, at all. It seems like they wanted a bad actor to portray how awkward Sheldon is, rather than a kid capable of portraying the unknown awkardness. None of his snarky attitude is there, either. Just a kid saying annoying things in a stilted manner.
I just don’t find anything there worth caring about, and actively don’t want to see anything like that again.
The kid is smart. He’s much too verbal to be autistic.
Child prodigies pop up now and then. IRL
There’s a similar new show about a Child prodigy doctor. The previews remind me of Doogie Howser.
I can’t think of the title. It’s being advertised heavily.
The Good Doctor
Apparently he’s more socially awkward then Doogie Howser. Doogie was a normal kid that was very smart.
The actor has played Norman Bates on Bates Motel for the past four years.
He’s really not that young. Freddie was attending college during the Bates Motel run.
This looks like a trainwreck. And not one of those cool-looking trainwrecks where the fireworks car is right next to the rocket fuel car and they’re both ignited by a random bolt of lightning.
… And the cops all say “Move along, there’s nothing to see here!”
Let me just say I never had an interest in what Sheldon’s early years were like.
Which is not to exclude that a good show could be made as to how this boy in the high-functioning end of the spectrum was able to grow up and achieve great accomplishments, but would that really be a show tied in spirit to Sheldon in TBBT?
It seems cheesy and like a silly concept, although I did like the attention to detail to make it actually look it took place in 1989.
I really don’t see any reason for this show, though since it was “created” by Jim Parsons I’m guessing that CBS doesn’t want to upset the star of their best rated sitcom.
The only thing I thought was interesting was the casting of Zoe Perry as Sheldon’s mom. As the daughter of Laurie Metcalf she has the facial look and voice cadence that make you believe that she could be a younger version of Mary Cooper
The Spectrum is a little more complicated that that.
I liked the clip and I think I will like the show. I also trust Chuck Lorre. The man has an enormous talent for producing shows that are smart, sweet and funny as hell. If he is taking this one on, it is worth giving it a shot. He is producing this one, isn’t he?
Well, it has the cop from CSI: Miami" and Bill Ponderosa in it, which means I don’t know if it’ll be good or bad.
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One interesting difference is that Young Sheldon is shot with a single camera and (at least in the clip) without a laugh track, while The Big Bang Theory is a standard three-camera sitcom with a studio audience. At the least that allows changes in the pacing and themes of the program.
I wouldn’t dismiss the kid as being unable to act. it just seems like another example of why I almost always dislike kids’ characters in movies and TV shows. their parts are being written by adults, and at best they portray sarcastic little adults, at worst they’re just totally unnatural. I don’t think I’ve seen anything in which the kids resemble anything close to how kids are in real life.
Jim Parsons was on one of the late night talk shows not long ago. When they asked him about Young Sheldon’s lead, he said, IIRC, that they deliberately picked a kid with no acting experience who had the “essence” of whom they think Young Sheldon would be like.
I don’t count a clip from a commercial to be a fair assessment, so we’ll see.
I’ve always thought Spielberg excelled at casting and directing realistic children. Especially his early films, like Jaws, Close Encounters, and E.T. Even the kids in Jurassic Park felt like regular kids.
My kid is smart, on the spectrum and is a regular Chatty-Cathy.
But, as I recall, the TBBT writers/creators have said before that they’d never definitively label Sheldon with any form of autism because they didn’t want to be on the hook afterwards for “getting it right” or accidentally screwing it up in some terribly insulting way.
Confession: I loathe TBBT and have only watched three episodes because I couldn’t believe it could stay that bad.
This show? Way, way worse, from that clip. You’re right, this is not remotely what real genius kids act like. Those who can’t pick up on social clues intuitively tend either to figure out how to translate them into intellectual patterns and cope thereby, or to be very withdrawn or high-strung, because they know there’s this world they’re missing and it’s making people furious at them, and they can’t figure out how to translate. They don’t go around calmly saying shitty inappropriate things to people and letting everything roll off their backs.
This looks dreadful.
I guess I’m in the minority in thinking that it looks a lot better than what I thought it would. It’s probably doomed by its format. It looks like it’s molded in the style of The Wonder Years. That drama comedy mix will only work if their is character growth. We already know what old Sheldon looks like. He can’t gain greater understanding of the world around him and some self awareness and remain Sheldon.